[ExI] Let's play What If.

[Damien Broderick]

On 11/8/2010 12:41 PM, John Clark wrote:
> I see no reason to assume "you" are the original, and even more
> important I see no reason to care if "you" are the original.

The endless perspective or Point-of-View confusion.

Of course a copy experiences himself as the original (that's what an 
exact copying process *means*). Of course the rest of the world 
experiences him as equally you. There are two major problems seldom 
addressed in this complacent view:

1) The jurisprudential--who owns the original's possessions? Where 
provenance of the original can be established, it seems pretty likely 
that the law will find for the original, in the absence of an advance 
agreement to split the loot.

2) If copying requires destruction of the original, is it 
psychologically likely that he will go to his death happy in the 
knowledge that his exact subsequent copy will continue elsewhere? Many 
here say, "Hell, yes, it's only evolved biases and cognitive errors that 
could support any other opinion!" Others say, "Maybe so, but you're not 
getting me into that damned gas chamber."

So if the world becomes filled with people happy to be killed and 
copied, of course it's likely that after a few hundred iterations 
identity will be construed this way by almost everyone. If the USA 
becomes filled with the antiabortion offspring of the duped who believe 
evolution is a godless hoax and humans never walked on the moon, those 
opinions will also be validated. So what?

Damien Broderick